More Than 300 Jobs Cut At O'hare Base

In the first evidence of military streamlining at the O'Hare Air Reserve Station, more than 300 primarily civilian employees who oversee military supply contracts are losing their jobs.

With a deactivation ceremony scheduled for Friday, the North Central headquarters of the Defense Contract Management District is closing up shop, officials said. The district currently oversees 31,000 contracts worth $147 billion for all branches of the military in 14 states.

As part of the Defense Department's effort to consolidate military operations, the North Central headquarters is shipping its duties-managing contracts for everything from clothing to food to artillery to fighter jets-to the agency's west district in El Segundo, Calif.

"Basically, the Defense Department is downsizing. We have a smaller business base," said Larry Wilson, public affairs officer for the Defense Logistics Agency, a non-military Defense Department agency that oversees the contract management.

"The military has grown smaller in terms of number of troops, faster than we've reduced the infrastructure," Wilson said.

The shutdown of the North Central headquarters, expected to be completed by July 3, also signals the beginning of the exodus of the military from the O'Hare Air Reserve Station.

Although not directly related, both the deactivation of the North Central headquarters and the realignment of Air Force reservists and civilians at the base were ordered last year by the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

Under an agreement announced last July, Chicago will get the 356 acres of reserve station land. To get the land, however, Chicago must first come up with funding for the estimated $350 million move of the station's 1,900 reservists and 800 civilians in the Air Force Reserve's 928th Airlift Group and the National Guard's 126th Air Refueling Wing.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has until 1995 to come up with a site and relocation plan and until 1998 to complete the move.

Several municipalities seeking to obtain the station are expected to submit proposals to Chicago for review by the Friday deadline, said Lisa Howard, Chicago Aviation Department spokeswoman.

Rockford, Aurora, Scott Air Force Base at Belleville, Coles County, Bloomington, Decatur, Moline (Quad Cities), Peoria, Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul and Springfield are among the communities that in the past have expressed an interest in the base.

Any decision on the base's relocation would have to meet the Air Force's approval.

The deactivation of the Defense Contract Management District at O'Hare has been hard for some who have worked at the headquarters since it opened in 1965, said Pam Hungerford, district command affairs officer. She said most employees have found jobs at the O'Hare station's field office, where contracts are processed, or at other bases and federal agencies.

"It's certainly not a happy occasion for the majority of people," said Hungerford, who has yet to find another job.

For Melba Acciari, deputy director of personnel, the layoff is the second one she's experienced at a federal agency in nine years. She was laid off when the U.S. Customs Office in Chicago moved its personnel office to Washington, D.C.

She said, however, that this particular deactivation is wreaking havoc on others at the base who are not being laid off, simply because of the military's plan to downsize.

"I have never seen so much turmoil," said Acciari, who opted for the military's separation pay incentive of up to $25,000.

Larry Vann served as director of planning and resource management until he landed a job a month ago at the Department of Energy in Argonne.

"It was pretty devastating," Vann said of the deactivation announcement. "For one thing I considered the folks I worked with an extended family. The organization itself was one of the finest in the (Defense Logistics Agency)."